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WHIT-
GIFT,

no more than a truce; for the contest between the two orders Abp. Cant. broke out again not long after.

Bound's doctrine con

The Puritans having miscarried in their open attacks upon the Church, endeavoured to carry on their designs more under covert. Their magnifying the Sabbath-day, as they call Sunday, was a serviceable expedient for this purpose. Preaching the strict observance of this festival had a strong colour of zeal, and gained them the character of persons particularly concerned for the honour of God Almighty. To what degrees of rigour this doctrine was strained, the reader may see by some of the assertions in Dr. Bound's book of the Sabbath, printed this year. This divine maintains:

First. That the command of sanctifying every seventh day, cerning the in the Mosaic Decalogue, is moral and perpetual.

observation of the Sabbath.

Bound's

Book of the
Sabbath.

Secondly. That whereas all other parts in the Jewish economy were to cease under Christianity, this of the Sabbath was only to change the day, but to remain unaltered in other circumstances.

Thirdly. That the rest upon this day must be particular and distinguished, and quite different from the customary usage. He defines the manner of this rest by affirming,

Fourthly, That scholars must not study the creditable sciences, nor lawyers entertain clients, nor peruse evidences; serjeants, apparators, and summoners, must be prohibited executing their respective offices; justices of peace are not to take examinations, nor act upon that day. To ring more bells than one is pronounced unlawful. No public entertainments or wedding-dinners are to be made. Under this instance of restraint, there was an odd reserve of liberty for lords, knights, and gentlemen of fashion; but which way this ceremony could consist with Bound's principles, is difficult to imagine. And, lastly, all diversions lawful upon other days were to be forborne; and no person was to discourse of recreations, news, or business.

This doctrine being singular in strictness, and those who recommended it persons of unexceptionable behaviour, grew very popular, and great numbers were proselyted to it. The learned, notwithstanding, were divided in their opinion. Some looked on this doctrine as agreeable to the Holy Scriptures, and a seasonable revival of ancient truth. Others believed

Bound built upon a weak foundation; and that though his in

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rians.

ferences might be right, his principles were wrong. However, ELIZAsince they tended to the advancement of piety, they thought it more serviceable to let the mistake pass upon the people. Others looked farther, and censured these assertions as a restraint of Christian liberty, and throwing us back to the Mosaic dispensation. Besides, it was reasonably suspected Bound could have no friendly design in this performance: it is plain he struck at ancient usage and the authority of the Church; and that by appearing so strongly for the strict observance of the Lord's-day, his intention was to put down the other festivals; that he wrote upon this view is pretty evident by his affirming, "That he sees not where the Lord has given Several extravagant any authority to his Church ordinarily and perpetually to assertions of sanctify any day, excepting that which he hath sanctified him- the Subbataself." And, farther, he urges it as a proof of degeneracy and innovation in the Church of Rome, that they had raised several days to an equality of regard with the seventh; that their religious offices were as solemn, and their prohibitions of working as peremptory, for holidays as Sundays. Besides, the Dissenters might have a farther reach in pressing these Sabbatarian rigours; and by gaining the people to this new doctrine, they might improve their interest and recover some part of the ground they lost in the miscarriage of their discipline. It seems some of the party ran the doctrine to a scandalous extremity, and delivered frightful paradoxes in the pulpit. They were so hardy as to say, "That to do any servile work or business on the Lord's-day, was as great a sin as to kill a man or commit adultery. In Somersetshire, that to throw a bowl on the Lord's-day was as great a sin as to kill a man. In Norfolk, that to make a feast, or, dress a weddingdinner on the same, was as great a sin as for a father to take a knife and cut his child's throat. And, in Suffolk, that to ring more bells than one on the Lord's-day, was as great a sin as to commit a murder."

Heylin,

644.

Hist. of

lib. 10.

Upon these excesses a complaint was preferred against some Presbyt. of the preachers, and their books ordered to be delivered to the bishops and magistracy by Whitgift and the chief justice Popham. But notwithstanding this care in the government, the doctrine spread, and caught upon the people. The Nonconformists were not wanting in their endeavours: for in most of their books they made it their business to reinforce

WHIT-
GIFT,

the subject, and press the practice. Thomas Rogers, a clerAbp. Cant. gyman of character, observes, that what the brethren wanted in strength and learning, they supplied in conduct and art; that when they found their presbyteries not defensible against the attacks of the Church, they quitted their old works, and raised new ones; and that from hence they played their Rogers' Pre- artillery with no small advantage. "It is a comfort to my

face to the

Book of
Articles.

soul," says this divine, "and will be to my dying hour, that I have been the man and the means that the Sabbatarian errors are brought into light and knowledge of the state," &c.

A contest at To proceed for some time past there had been a warm disCambridge concerning pute among the reformed in England about predestination, the five points. free-will, the force of Divine assistance, perseverance, and the. extent of redemption. The Puritans held the Calvinian side, and here it must be confessed they were abetted by no small numbers of the conforming clergy. The Arminian tenets, as they were afterwards called, were looked on as bordering upon Popery, which made some people start at them. Thus Travers, in his complaint to the council against Hooker, suggests this article among the rest: "That he had taught another doctrine of predestination than what was laid down in the word of God, as it was understood by all the Churches which professed the Gospel." Calvin's scheme of predestination was fortified by "Perkins' Golden Chain," published about four years since. But that which brought it the nearest to a public establishment, was the countenance of the Lambeth articles. This doctrine, handed from Geneva by the English refugees, and propagated by Cartwright in the Margaret professor's chair, had gained great footing in Cambridge, especially amongst the heads; insomuch that those who held the other side of the question were little better than novelists. Dr. Whitaker, the queen's professor, fell in with Perkins. This party having

stated the controversy to their own liking, and drawn the articles into form, laid them before archbishop Whitgift; but then they had taken care to prepossess him with an ill opinion of those who differed from them; that they had behaved themselves mutinously, and disturbed the harmony of the university. Dr. Whitaker, and some other eminent predestinarians, were dispatched to London on this message. The archbishop having a great value for Whitaker upon the score of his performance against Bellarmine, and being willing to put an

BETH.

end to the differences amongst the students, entered upon a ELIZAfarther debate of the question. To this purpose, he sent for Dr. Fletcher, elect of London; Dr. Richard Vaughan, elect of Bangor; Dr. Trindall, dean of Ely; Dr. Whitaker, and the rest of the divines who came from Cambridge, and proposed the points abovementioned to their consideration. This was done at Lambeth on the 10th of November. These prelates and divines, after some consultation, came to the following resolution, digested under nine heads, and called the Lambeth articles. They stand thus:

1. Deus ab æterno prædestinavit quosdam ad vitam, quosdam reprobavit ad mortem.

2. Causa movens aut efficiens prædestinationis ad vitam non est prævisio fidei, aut perseverantiæ, aut bonorum operum, aut ullius rei quæ insit in personis prædestinatis, sed sola voluntas bene placiti Dei.

3. Prædestinatorum præfinitus et certus est numerus, qui nec augeri nec minui potest.

4. Qui non sunt prædestinati ad salutem, necessario propter peccata sua damnabuntur.

5. Vera, viva, et justificans fides, et Spiritus Dei justificantis, non extinguitur, non excidit, non evanescit in electis, aut finaliter, aut totaliter.

6. Homo vere fidelis, id est fide justificante præditus, certus

beth articles

1. God from all eternity The Lamhas predestinated some per- settled the sons to life, and some he has Calvinian reprobated, or doomed to death and destruction.

2. The moving or efficient cause of predestination unto life, is not the divine prescience of faith, or of perseverance, or of good works, or of any other commendable quality in the person predestinated, but only the goodwill and pleasure of God.

3. The number of the predestinate is fixed and preordained, and can neither be increased or lessened.

4. Those who are not predestinated to salvation shall be, necessarily or inevitably, damned for their sins.

5. A true, lively, and justifying faith, and the operation of justifying grace, is not extinguished, it neither fails, nor goes off, in the elect, finally or totally.

6. A man truly said to be one of the faithful, that is,

way.

WHIT- est plerophoria fidei de remis-
GIFT,
Abp. Cant. sione peccatorum suorum, et sa-
lute sempiterna sua per Chris-

Fuller's Ch. Hist. book 9.

645.

tum.

7. Gratia salutaris non tribuitur, non communicatur, non conceditur universis hominibus, qua servari possint si velint.

8. Nemo potest venire ad Christum, nisi datum ei fuerit, et nisi Pater eum traxerit ; et omnes homines non trahuntur a Patre, ut veniant ad Filium.

9. Non est positum in arbitrio aut potestate unius cujusque hominis servari.

one furnished with justifying faith, has a full assurance and certainty of the remission of his sins, and of his everlasting salvation by Christ.

7. Saving grace is not given or communicated to all men ; that is, they have not such a measure of Divine assistance as may enable them to be saved, if they will.

8. No person can come to Christ unless it be given unto him, and unless the Father shall draw him; but all men are not drawn by the Father, that they may come to the Son.

9. It is not in every one's will and power to be saved'.

That archbishop Whitgift believed the articles true under this state, I think is pretty plain from his assenting to them. The learned Heylin endeavours to relieve his memory from this imputation, and supposes he might afford his countenance upon other motives. For instance, that he might prefer the making up the present differences, and allaying the heats in the university, to the guarding against remoter inconveniences, which lay more out of sight; or, that he might think it proper to support the queen's professor against those of the contrary sentiment; since Whitaker having somewhat of a public character, and having done service to the Reformation, deserved somewhat more than ordinary consideration. Farther, he supposes it possible that Whitgift, not having penetrated the subject, nor viewed the articles on all sides, might be surprised into an approbation. This excuse can do little service. But to fortify the rest of his conjectures, he observes, this archbishop took Hooker's part against Travers, at the council-board, and en

Tomline, in his refutation of Calvinism, has shown that the fathers of the three first centuries do not confirm these Calvinistic articles; and Scott in his defence of them is supported by few patristic authorities earlier than Augustin, always more eloquent than wise.

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